The English Football Portal
Football is the most popular sport in England, where the first modern set of rules for the code were established in 1863, which were a major influence on the development of the modern Laws of the Game. With over 40,000 association football clubs, England has more clubs involved in the code than any other country. England hosts the world's first club, Sheffield F.C.; the world's oldest professional association football club, Notts County; the oldest national governing body, the Football Association; the joint-oldest national team; the oldest national knockout competition, the FA Cup; and the oldest national league, the English Football League. It also has 31% of the population interested in Football. Today England's top domestic league, the Premier League, is one of the most popular and richest sports leagues in the world, with five of the ten richest football clubs in the world as of 2022.
The England national football team is one of only eight teams to win the FIFA World Cup, having done so once, in 1966. A total of six English club teams have won the UEFA Champions League, formerly known as the European Cup. (Full article...)
Selected article
Twice in the late 1980s Gillingham came close to winning promotion to the second tier of English football, but a decline then set in and in 1993 the club narrowly avoided relegation to the Football Conference. In 2000, the "Gills" reached the second tier of the English league for the first time in the club's history and went on to spend five seasons at this level, achieving a club record highest league finish of eleventh place in 2002–03. The only honour the club has won at a professional level was the Football League Fourth Division championship in 1963–64.
Did you know...
- ...that footballer Francis Lee (pictured) earned his nickname Lee One Pen by setting an English record for the most penalties scored in a single season?
![Francis Lee](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/92/Franny_Lee.jpg/150px-Franny_Lee.jpg)
- ...that Les Taylor only captained Watford in the 1984 FA Cup Final because regular captain Wilf Rostron was suspended?
- ...that English cricketer and footballer Arthur Milton was the last surviving person to have played Test cricket for the England cricket team and international football for the England football team?
- ...that English football referee Matt Messias once urged a Portsmouth defender not to kick an opposing player during a match against Newcastle United because "the devil was trying to get him sent off"?
- ...that former football player and manager Alan Brown quit Huddersfield Town and became a policeman for two and a half years before rejoining the club?
Selected competition
The competition formed as the FA Premier League on 20 February 1992 and the first games were played on 15 August that year, following the decision of clubs in the Football League First Division to break away from The Football League to take advantage of a lucrative television rights deal; The Football League had served as England and Wales' primary football competition since 1888.
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The opening ceremony of Euro 2004 saw hosts Portugal portrayed as a ship, symbolizing the voyages of the Portuguese explorers, sailing through a sea of the flags of all competing countries. England were eventually knocked out on penalties to the hosts in the quarter-finals.
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- 1923 FA Cup Final
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- List of Luton Town F.C. seasons
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- List of Manchester City F.C. managers
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- List of Manchester United F.C. players (25–99 appearances)
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- List of Manchester United F.C. records and statistics
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- List of Margate F.C. seasons
- List of Norwich City F.C. Players of the Year
- List of Oxford United F.C. managers
- PFA Players' Player of the Year
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- List of Premier League hat-tricks
- Record home attendances of English football clubs
- List of Scarborough F.C. seasons
- List of Sunderland A.F.C. managers
- List of Sunderland A.F.C. players
- List of Sunderland A.F.C. seasons
- List of Watford F.C. seasons
- Watford F.C. Player of the Season
- List of West Bromwich Albion F.C. seasons
- List of York City F.C. Clubmen of the Year
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- List of York City F.C. seasons
- List of York City F.C. statistics and records
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- Expand stubs: Competitions in England • National teams • Organisations
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